


Incantations

by Linane



Series: Once Upon A Time [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Character Growth, Dark Fairytale, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Hunter!Kili, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Sex, Think: Grimm Brothers Fairytales, Werewolf!Fili
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-04 08:11:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15837276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane
Summary: One heart saved, two hearts loved, unwavering kindness of their touch and the rest of their lives.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlmarvel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlmarvel/gifts).



> Truth be told, Spellbound doesn't need a sequel and perhaps it _shouldn't_ have one. This has to be said - it sits just perfectly balanced in its original form as a contained story. It's richer for being so sparse.
> 
> But I have missed those babies and I can never leave well enough alone, so...
> 
> Written for the FiKi Week 2018, Day 4: Fantasy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC

 

“Fili.”

He doesn’t question any more how Kili always seems to know just where he might be.

“You’ll be all groggy tomorrow again.” There’s amusement in Kili’s voice as he lowers himself to sit on the fallen log by Fili’s side and wrap his arm around his waist.

“Look at the lake.”

There’s a million twinkling stars above them and a million more reflected in the perfect stillness of the surface. Fili thought perhaps one day they might grow old and obvious to him, but they don’t.

“It’s beautiful,” Kili agrees, tiredly resting his head on his shoulder and that finally gets Fili’s attention.

“Tell me a story,” he insists. “Then we’ll go.”

Kili considers for a moment, his dark eyes scanning the heavens for a suitable star, before they finally come to rest low above the horizon. “Those two over the mountain peak. They’re called ‘brothers’. There were once two princes in a faraway land to the north –”

 

\---

 

It’s amazing how quickly their home becomes completely, unquestionably _theirs_.

Kili’s bundles of herbs drying in the kitchen, suspended from the roof beams, patiently awaiting their turn to be meticulously ground, powdered and placed in little earthenware jars as remedies.

Fili’s books – nearly two shelves of them by now – spines well-worn from use, various little leaves and bits of ribbon sticking out here and there as bookmarks.

Soft rabbit furs painstakingly sewn together to form huge, warm covers on their bed.

Crackling fireplace, a golden pinecone above it and thick honeybee wax candles dotted around the place to provide additional light.

To anyone else it would seem small and plain, but to them it’s a _sanctuary_. One of love and unconditional forgiveness, which they’ve built for each other.

 

\---

 

“What’s this for?” Fili asks, as a plain red ribbon is tied around his wrist.

“Protection,” Kili tells him simply, finishing off the knot and double-checking that it doesn’t sit too tight. “I’ve carried it around with me for a while now. It will protect you against magic, not all magic mind, just the weaker kind. If you feel it burning or tingling, it will mean that someone is targeting you with their Power.”

“And you? It won’t harm you, will it?”

Kili laughs softly. “It’s my own protection charm.”

“Good.” He’s grown used to Kili’s magic, this slightly _off_ feeling about him, something he can’t quite place his finger on, which Kili no longer tries to hide. He feels it sometimes, across his skin, in his thoughts, even fluttering on the wind – brightness, warm and stubborn like Kili.

The Witch watches him for a quiet moment. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

Fili smiles at him. “It’s your own protection charm, Kili.”

 

\---

 

“How is your heart nowadays?”

“Stronger. Safer. Healing. How is yours?”

“Spoken for,” Kili grins. “Better, now that I’m no longer forced to watch you suffer,” he adds quietly.

 

\---

 

He doesn’t wonder any more how he could have missed the fact that Kili had magic.

It just doesn’t define him – he doesn’t let it.

That Kili knows, senses, or commands things others cannot, is of no consequence to the _person_ that he is.

 

\---

 

They were never naïve enough to believe that they could have this life forever; in the end they are just glad for the way their secret is handled when it’s out.

Fili is recognised by his father’s courtier, who leaves without giving any indication of what he has learned. It isn’t until two days later that a lone rider arrives, wrapped in a plain, dark cloak and a piercing look of familiar blue eyes.

“I’ve come to see my son,” she says simply, when Kili bows. He thinks that’s what one is supposed to do when faced with their queen.

“Amad,” Fili chokes out from the doorway of their home, and he sounds so quiet, so fragile again that Kili’s fingers twitch to notch an arrow and defend him.

They don’t, in the end, because there’s just as much love in this one word as there is pain, and Kili would never deny him love.

 

\---

 

“I can’t come back with you.”

Fili doesn’t hesitate; simply puts words to what his heart has known for a very long time: Prince Fili died when his heart stopped beating on the cliffs above the sea.

His mother regards him with calm eyes. “Why?” she asks simply.

“Because I have done horrific things, things that can never be forgiven or wiped clean. I should, by rights, be killed for my crimes. I could never presume… I don’t _deserve_ to rule over anyone, much less our people. But I have found something like peace here, and the courage to live out the rest of my days.”

Dis sighs, cradles his hands inside her own and kisses the backs of his fingers as if she could wipe away their sins with the sheer strength of a mother’s love.

“So I have lost a prince. Am I to lose a son as well?”

Fili bites his lip. He knows the weight of his guilt; he knows the extent of his destruction and all the sharp, jagged pieces left inside him. He knows what’s been done to him.

“I don’t know if I can be that,” he whispers. “I don’t know… if I can be loved.”

That is a lie; Kili loves him. But Kili was there almost every step of the way, as Fili bled and screamed and was destroyed anew every evening. Kili picked up the pieces and helped steady Fili’s hands as Fili painstakingly put them back together.

“When I came here I wasn’t expecting to find the lad I last saw laughing among the castle courtyards. But I was hoping to find _you_. I’m your mother, Fili; I’ll always be your mother.”

“You won’t like what you find.”

“Truth about a golden wolf, who used to terrorize the area some years back? A tale of two hunters who have finally slain him?”

Fili looks up sharply, but there is only sadness in her eyes.

“I know,” she simply says. “I won’t ask you to return, nor will I ask you to tell me the details. But I’d like to visit here sometimes. Alone, perhaps for a day or two. And if you allow it, I’d like to have a son once more.”

Fili looks away and thinks of kind hands and persistent kisses which have made him brave again.

“Do you think you could find it in your heart to love me still?” he asks quietly, because Kili taught him to ask. “Even if I’ve been changed?”

“Oh, Fili. I’ve never stopped.”

 

\---

 

Kili finds him stretched out on his back among the tall grass and cornflowers of their meadow. The same meadow where Fili agreed to build a home together.

“Your mother is all settled in for the night. In the cabin, which is probably illegal, for royalty.”

Fili’s eyes are trained on his beloved stars, but he doesn’t seem to really see them. Kili looks around them, at the idyll bathed in the moonlight, at the promise of a quiet life and the happiness they have known by words, by touches, by companionship.

He swallows and sits down heavily. “So… When do we leave? Shall I pack our bags?”

Still, only silence.

He looks down, at the trampled flowers and then away, at the faint light of their home, visible in the distance through the trees.

“Just your bags then.”

It was foolish to believe that he could have kept Fili all to himself. He gets to his feet to go –

A hand shoots out to catch his wrist, Fili’s fingers cool, gentle, but strong.

“We are not going anywhere.”

“You’re a prince, Fili. And I’m a commoner.”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Fili looks around them, his gaze taking in the same little area as Kili moments ago. “This is my kingdom,” he says simply and it’s not lost on Kili how he’s on his knees before him for this. “ _You_ are my citadel. And I will protect this realm for as long as I live.”

“To rule is your birth right. You can’t just –”

“Will you love me until the day I die?”

“Yes.”

“Is _that_ not my birth right? My kingdom didn’t save me, Kili. You did. When I watched my skin split open, my ribs break, and my own heart burst inside my chest, none of my titles, none of my subjects, or the armies I could call upon made a jot of a difference.”

“My liege –”

“Don’t call me that. Please. Don’t _ever_ feel like I’m more than you. I’m _nothing_ , except whatever worth you see in me.”

“Fili…” softer now, his hands reaching, finding, holding.

“This is where I belong, Kili; this is where I choose to remain. With you. I’ve made this choice a long, long time ago; long before you saved me. ”

 

\---

 

“You love that young man with the forest trapped in his eyes.” It’s a statement, not a question, as Fili walks his mother slowly back to the main road, leading her horse by the reins.

“I do.”

“Will you let me meet him?”

“One day,” he smiles. “When he stops calling you ‘queen’ and hiding in our kitchen.”

 

\---

 

Fili throws a pot after a pot, his hands moulding the clay gently, sensually, with skill and ease.

Working at the wheel helps him think, and normally Kili leaves him to it, but now –

He sits himself on a rickety stool opposite Fili and starts grinding the delicate leaves with his pestle and mortar. All those wares will want a nice, colourful glaze and that requires a dye.

He doesn’t know when his eyes slip to watch the wet clay be smoothed and shaped, or how they become trapped there.

Kili wonders what sort of a king Fili would make and what right he has to such a king.

He wonders how his hex could possibly not be seen as an entrapment.

He wonders –

Loving Fili was always the easy part. Being worthy of his love was always the tricky one.

 

\---


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Do you think hearts can heal, mother?”

“If they are forgiven and set free.”

Fili considers, stores the thought for later. “You’re the only person left alive to have known me as I was before, _truly_ known me.”

“But was that the real you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Love defines you, Fili. More than you know.”

 

\---

 

He watches his Witch talk to the chickens.

They’re a gift from his mother, one which Kili has instantly made away with, after having, yet again, curtsied before her.

For their part, the hens don’t seem to understand him, or indeed care about Kili’s chatter, only interested in pecking at the fresh grain he offers them.

Fili wonders if others might look at this innocent behaviour and call it witchcraft.

He wonders if at a place Kili used to call home, he would have fed his chickens in silence.

 

\---

 

Most corpses he left behind were torn to pieces, but there are some still, which he didn’t have the time to get started on properly, and those rise now wailing and reaching for him, from the little valley deep in the forest, where they buried them.

He belongs with them. Snapped bones, torn arteries, muscles like strings. He is, after all, merely a corpse himself and it’s yet another unforgivable betrayal that he doesn’t stay rotting in the ground, like he should.

“Fili!”

Three crosses to his temple. Cross one –

Kili’s eyes hazy with sleep, blurred in the darkness as he murmurs the spell, but his magic holds true.

Cross two –

It reaches deeper inside him and it feels –

Familiar. Intimate. _Safe_.

Fili stops resisting and in that moment Kili _has him_ , the spell steady and bright against the nightmares, putting flesh back where he could only see bones and decay.

He grunts, giving up on trying to hold himself upright, but Kili easily takes most of his weight.

Third cross.

The calming spell. Kili presses a kiss over the whole lot, which has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with love.

“Easy,” he whispers hoarsely, but he doesn’t let go and Fili is able to return to him, navigating by his voice and his Power.

He’s safe now; the corpses are banished.

It’s only simple little spell, based mostly in Fili’s own psychological responses and coping mechanisms, which they have meticulously unpicked and strengthened together over time. It works through their familiarity, trust and love, through whispers they escape into and defiant forgiveness.

“Camomile tea. It will help bring you the rest of the way down,” Kili murmurs into his hair and moves towards the edge of the bed. “Come with me?” he offers.

Fili watches him for a moment, tired of being broken. He looks down to his shaking hands, and feels the bed dip as Kili returns with his arms, his warmth, his strength.

“It wasn’t you,” Kili tells him for the thousandth time. “It was the Wolf. You said it yourself: you had no control over it.”

“There would have been no Wolf if I let him have what he wanted.”

Kili stiffens and Fili knows he’s made a mistake. “There would have been no _you_ either,” the Witch whispers. “And the evil would have found some other way. Imagine what it could achieve controlling a prince.”

Fili thinks of Kili’s bright, nurturing magic, brushing against him lovingly, and the cold, violating, destructive Power which used to rip him apart.

Kili is right; he wouldn’t have survived if he didn’t fight, and there is no telling what he would have done just to escape the torture.

“It’s of no consequence to the corpses,” he croaks.

“No. But it _is_ of consequence to the living.”

 

\---

 

Kili was eight when he first felt a little tingle in his fingertips as they reached for his mother.

He often wonders what she’d make of Fili; she’d probably laugh at how hastily Kili threw his heart at the tortured prince.

He’s always assumed there would be no ‘happily ever after’ for him, but perhaps that’s what made him brave: the need to claim some shred of joy before it all ended.

And now that he has it –

“I brought you some pebbles,” his love tells him, settling down next to Kili on his favourite tree branch.

“Um… Thanks?”

“You like pebbles. I saw you collect some at the stream the other day. You were being very picky, so I don’t know if these are any good, but I was doing the laundry and they caught my eye.”

Kili gives him a sideways glance, but there is no question forthcoming. So far.

“Flat,” he mutters. “They should be flat and round or oval. Lighter are better.”

Fili peers at the little selection in his hands. “Two, then. I’ll do better next time, now that I know.”

“Thank you.” _For being my ‘happily ever after’._

 

\---

 

“Kili is a Witch,” Fili says slowly, carefully watching his mother for a reaction.

He tells her because he needs to, because he’s trusted her his entire life and he doesn’t know how to keep it from her. Because he’d rather be open about it, than have her notice something off and get the wrong idea.

He tells her because Fili asked and Kili agreed.

A sharp intake of air and eyes ready to unleash the fury of a kingdom on any that might presume to harm or enslave her son.

“He is _my_ Witch, and the only real enchantment he’s cast on me is his passionate, unwavering love.”

“But after everything –“

“After everything,” Fili agrees, takes her hands into his own and looks her in the eye, for once baring his battered soul. “There wouldn’t _be_ an ‘after’, if not for Kili. He’s kind, thoughtful and gentle and he doesn’t know corruption or cruelty. I could never have loved anyone with an evil heart, Amad.”

In her eyes arguments rise and fall, battles rage on and fear twists through it all. “He doesn’t hurt you?” she asks eventually.

“No. He… He’s healing me, I think. He saved me, as much as any soul can save another, although he will claim that I did it all by myself. He loved me, arrogantly, stubbornly, when I didn’t know what love was. And now… the only truth I know is that he is mine and I am his.”

“And yet he avoids me. Is he upset that I visit you?”

“He worries that you’ll take me away and he’ll be left all alone again.” Fili hesitates, but he’s learned that the difficult truths are better than easy lies. “It was by fathers’ orders that his mother was burned at the stake.”

Dis closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose in a gesture that Fili mimics so often. “Your father was –“ she stops and he knows that the inadequacy of any justification of this crime is not lost on her, but the words have been freed now and must be voiced. “I loved him, once. But he was gone once you disappeared; he was never the same. I think in his own mind, he was trying to avenge you.”

“That didn’t work out very well then, seeing as the man who hexed me appeared here less than a year ago.” She looks up in alarm but he only shakes his head. “Kili. He protected me.”

“It was easier when he died,” she whispers. “There hasn’t been a burning in close to four years.”

“You tolerate them, but you don’t understand them.”

“No, but you do. And I can learn.”

 

\---

 

Fili opens his eyes and expects agony.

Still. Sometimes.

When none materialises, his hand automatically moves to his chest, only to find another one already there, standing guard over his heart.

He smiles, slots their fingers together and feels Kili sigh sleepily and shift to pull him closer.

“Sleep, Princeling,” his Witch commands. “’S early still.”

The slow, relaxed pulse inside his body. Warmth, comfort, quiet, obvious love. These are the greatest gifts Fili has ever been given, the greatest treasures he’s ever owned.

 

\---

 

“I love you.”

Kili is told daily. Five, ten, fifty times a day sometimes. And that’s not counting the thousand little actions and gestures that all spell out the same thing.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, _so much_ , more than anything.”

To Fili, ability to show affection, to express his feelings freely, is a hard-won privilege and a source of quiet, constant delight.

Kili never ceases to be amazed by it. He supposes that it’s just possible, after close to four years spent together, that some of the stubbornness his own heart possesses might have rubbed off on Fili.

 

\---

 

Fili hates killing, but he does understand the need to eat.

He’s good with a bow, now that his chest is healed enough to draw it without causing himself pain; less spontaneous, instinctive in the way he hunts, but far more patient than Kili could ever be.

He likes to come out onto the wetlands, find himself some relatively dry spot to sit in and spend the next two or three hours just watching the ducks, quails and pheasants, letting them get used to him there. And then, usually when one of them gets close, Fili sends his arrows flying.

Kili has seen him release four in less than fifteen seconds and return home with four quails, three of them shot _after_ the flock has been startled into flight.

“I wait for them to be happy,” Fili told him once, “and make sure that their death is quick and catches them off-guard, as death should be.”

 

\---

 

“My Love,” Kili’s voice is warm when it envelops Fili along with his hands.

“Yours,” he agrees breathlessly, allowing the kisses over his heart and the slow, wet slide into his body.

Outside a brief summer storm batters their home with crisp rain, like Kili’s breaths batter Fili’s skin, feeding the fires of his pleasure, but it’s low still, gentle thrum that in time will burn them both into incoherency.

He takes his pleasure sitting, hips rolling smoothly in a swelling rhythm, like the waves that almost claimed his life, and he loses himself in the adoration and worship of the dark brown eyes.

“My Witch,” he whispers when Kili’s hands brush his cheeks, his jaw and close around his shoulders, when his kisses slow Fili down. He sinks into those too when Kili’s hips start describing slow circles and he moans his approval at the movement inside him.

“Y-yours,” Kili pants, eyes huge, dark and blown like magic itself. “Only yours.”

 

\---

 

“Do you think I love you less?” Fili asks one day, watching the sun slipping down towards the horizon. “Now that I know you have the Gift.”

“I think you’d have every right to, if you did.”

Fili searches his face, but hazel eyes refuse to meet his own. “Are you… ashamed of being a Witch? Aside from having to hide it from other people.”

“There’s rarely _an aside_.”

“There _is_ here, with me.”

Kili bites his lip. “I never used to be. Until I saw the damage it could do.”

Fili looks away then, stares at the pure, liquid gold flickering through the branches, caressing his skin, slipping into his eyes despite the protection of his eyelashes.

“I haven’t got all that much experience, but as best as I can tell, love comes in units of one soul, indivisible to the heart that chooses it.” Fili tells him, finding his hand to cradle it inside his own. “I don’t want you to be less than what you are, Kili. I don’t want you to hide, not from me; I only ask that you explain. It doesn’t hurt me, it never has; not when it’s your Power.”

 

\---

 

Kili kisses the scars. One by one, slowly, pouring love into each caress, fingertips tender over the uneven tissue, until Fili learns to love them as much as Kili does.

“They are a part of you,” Kili whispers.

“They are a part of what brought you to me,” Fili replies, arching up into the touch.

 

\---

 

Fili picks his flowers alone: gentle poppies with their swaying heads of silky petals for peace, purple twigs of harebells for grief, snowy elderflower for compassion, fluffy dandelions for courage to overcome.

He puts the small bundle atop the boulder they placed to mark the spot where the Wolf found its final resting place. He doesn’t think the animal would care much for the flowers, but it’s also for those it claimed.

Fili doesn’t forget, but he _is_ now brave enough to face his demons and honour them, instead of letting them destroy him.

 

\---

 

“How did you know you loved him?”

“Because I was dying and I only regretted the loss of his laughter.”

 

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments, they are all much appreciated!!

 

“Aside from the release you told me about, if your heart stops, would mine stop as well?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because there will be no more magic to sustain the hex.”

Fili nods calmly. Kili would prefer it if he rebelled instead.

“And if mine stops?”

“Mine does as well. There would be no more love to sustain the magic.”

Fili looks away and then allows his head to drop. When he looks up again there are tears his eyes, sliding down his cheeks, perhaps searching for their own freedom. “You hexed yourself too. Why would you do such a thing?”

“I told you: because I love you.”

 

\---

 

Kili is fidgeting, but he can’t help it.

Fili’s mother is so… _royal_. She feels strong, really strong, like Fili.

It would only take a snap of her fingers. They’d capture him, tie him to the stake and –

“I’m sorry,” he grits out and then he’s running, as far as he can bear.

Fili finds him some indeterminable amount of time later.

“I’m sorry,” he mimics Kili’s earlier words. “It was too soon.”

“Don’t let them.”

“Don’t let them what -?”

“Take me. If it comes down to it, promise me you’ll kill me before they can –”

“Kili!”

He doesn’t register the tears running down his face, or the short, gasping breaths which never seem to deliver enough oxygen.

“I didn’t choose it, Fili!” he sobs. “It’s not my fault!”

He gasps, when Fili pulls him so tight to his chest that it hurts. “I won’t let anyone touch you,” Fili whispers in the same voice hexes and blood pacts are made with. “I will kill anyone who dares lay a finger on you, I swear. I will kill them all.”

That’s it; that’s Kili’s only protection.

It’s infinitely more than he’s ever had before.

 

\---

 

“I’ve never… belonged like I do now.” Kili whispers, sleepy and exhausted from his anguish in Fili’s arms. “I’ve always drifted, looked after myself. It’s-”

The kiss is slow and gentle and for a moment Kili remembers a hundred kisses of his own, painful, necessary, hopeful. Little things he begged for, afraid of taking too much from Fili. He lets himself take it now, relaxes and sighs, when love swells in him, like it always does, steady and bright.

For a moment he wonders if he’s needed saving just as much as Fili did.

“Terrifying.” Fili murmurs, his eyes soft and caring. “Trusting, depending. Not having to be strong all the time.”

“Feels like it could all just burst, like a bubble.”

Fili leans in closer, as if his whispered words were intended for Kili’s soul alone. “Trust in me; trust in my love and that I will understand. Trust me to keep you safe, like you have kept me safe.”

 

\---

 

Kili wakes up where he fell asleep, with his head pillowed in Fili’s lap, among the greenery of the meadow. Behind him Fili is snoring softly, sitting propped up against a tree, his fingers still lost in Kili’s hair.

He wakes up because someone places a blanket over his body, carefully tucking in the edges. His eyes find familiar blue and for a moment he feels safe enough to close them again.

“I understand that I owe you two lives: your mother’s and that of my son,” Dis whispers, making Kili tense and his eyes fly open. “I have no power to return either, but I wouldn’t have you afraid. I will never, ever hurt you, Kili. Nor will I try to steal him away from you. You have my word.”

 

\---

 

He closes his eyes as Fili’s skilful fingers put in the braid. It requires re-doing often, but Fili never complains. It’s their own little ritual, welcome in its familiarity after the revelations of the morning.

“You have all that I am,” his love whispers into his collar bone, presses a kiss there, like the flutter of wings. “Everything that I feel, anything you might wish to take from me. You have only to ask.”

This is safety. This is Kili’s.

 

\---

 

If there is one thing Fili has learned in all his years spent in the forest, it’s this: injured hearts, like injured birds, need four things in order to heal: love, care, attention and time.

 

\---

 

“Do they still hurt?”

Kili’s scars aren’t as extensive or horrific as Fili’s, but his skin does hold its own chronicle of pain and hard battles to survive in a world that’s never been kind to him.

“No. And you’ve put in beautiful little stitches so they look almost like tattoos.”

“It’s easier on another than on yourself.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

Fili remembers red blooming on linens like flowers, eyes hazy from pain, defiant breaths he carefully guarded.

A stranger who lived. A sacrifice of blood and flesh, which saved them both. Fili’s entire world.

Fate is a terrifying thing: if Kili hadn’t worn that light chainmail that day, or if he hadn’t missed his shot, at least one of them wouldn’t be alive today.

More likely, they’d both be dead.

 

\---

 

Fili never misses a sunset, no matter what they’re doing.

Kili watches him leaning casually against the doorway to their tiny stables, plain, white, linen shirt billowing around his waist, golden hair fluttering gently in the wind, except where they’re weighed down by Kili’s braids.

It must be agony, he thinks, except perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s relief and some sort of quiet pleasure that it has no power over him, that he’s free.

Kili moves because he has to, because it’s a truth hidden in plain sight that Fili is the one to dictate each and every single pulse of Kili’s heart, its exact rhythm, speed and strength.

An oblivious owner of his own heartbeat by proxy.

He kisses his Monster, having gently turned him around and pinned him against the door, tucked right in his personal space.

He kisses slow and thorough, stealing hot breath and folding himself around the other body; he kisses in the most tender and kind way he knows how, returning the feelings he himself was shown.

This time he kisses out of pure, delighted love.

 

\---

 

“Are there good and bad witches, fighting one another? Is there some sort of grand, cosmic conflict going on, in which I happened to get caught?” Fili asks one day.

Kili gives him a Look. “Are there good and bad people? Do they fight one another, in some sort of grand, cosmic –“

“Alright, I get it.”

Kili looks away. “All hearts are moved by the same things,” he whispers. “I’m just as human as you are. I bleed exactly the same.”

 

\---

 

“If it hurts you that I come, I will stop. Or ask him to meet me away from this place. He is more yours now than he is mine.”

Kili looks her in the eye, perhaps for the first time. “He will always be a little bit yours. You’re his mother.”

She holds his gaze for a moment, until her eyes soften, like Fili’s when he drops his guard.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Your mother’s death. She raised a wonderful son, with a good and kind heart. She must have been so proud.”

Kili tries to swallow the tears, but they escape him anyway. “Nobody ever apologised before,” he whispers.

Fili did, but Kili’s heart forgave him long before he could contemplate the sentiment.

“I didn’t mean to cause you pain; I only thought you deserved to hear it.” She reaches out a hand and Kili is too tired to flinch when a thumb wipes a tear. “I don’t want to be your queen. My name is Dis.”

“I don’t want to be his witch. My name is Kili.”

 

\---

 

Kili tries not to poke at the things that hurt him, tries to forget his mother’s screams, the agony in his soul as he watched, or the endless questions why.

Fili, for his part, tries a different route: he stares down sunsets defiantly, learns to take pleasure from uneven skin and becomes silent friends with his own guilt.

In the end they both make their own peace one way or another.

 

\---

 

“Tell me a spell,” Fili asks, gently wrapping his fingers around Kili’s, “to banish this sadness from your heart.”

Kili smiles, but softly, when his smiles are always meant to be wild. “You already know all the spells there are, when it comes to me.”

“I know only love.”

“Exactly.”

 

\---

 

He watches Fili fish at the stream, by which he means lying on the sun-warmed grass, reading a book and holding on to his fishing rod with his foot, one end wedged between his big toe and the rest of them.

It’s an odd technique, but it works for him. So long as he doesn’t fall asleep, that is.

In his early days he used to lose almost as many fishing rods as the fish he brought home.

He doesn’t resist when Kili slips down to the grass next to him, allows himself to be kissed until all his breath has been stolen, his hair is a mess and Kili has coaxed a satisfied smile, complete with those elusive dimples.

“I love you,” Kili tells him and thinks that there is something of a spoiled prince in him yet.

“I love you too,” Fili murmurs, eyes fixed on Kili’s lips, and as if to prove a point, he pulls him back down by his braid for yet more kisses.

 

\---

 

“Did you name them yet?”

Kili looks up from where he’s chopping up leeks to the woman with dark hair and blue eyes that keep catching him off-guard. Not a queen. Fili’s mum.

“Name who?”

“The chickens I brought last time.”

“Oh. Lucrezia and Cassandra. But Fili has taken to calling them Trouble and Mischief, and it’s kind of… stuck,” Kili mutters half in annoyance, half in affection.

Dis laughs and for a moment he’s stunned by the familiar sound and the automatic swell of affection in his chest.

“I’ve never seen him as happy as when he’s with you.”

“Not even… Before?”

“No. Not even Before.”

 

\---

 

“How did you know you loved him?”

“Because he kept dying and I kept dying with him.”

 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments and for coming on this journey with me :)

 

“I want to ask something of you, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I need you to say no.”

“Alright,” Fili looks up at him, because it’s so rare that Kili asks.

“The day of Beltane approaches. There is a ritual, which harnesses the power of… celebrations, to bestow protection and good fortune upon a place. It’s… it’s a good thing, born out of nature. It won’t harm me or you, and it will help keep us safe.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s… about love. Physical love.”

 

\---

 

“What’s this one?” Fili asks, peering at a rune over the inside of his wrist fitted in among the curling vines and other symbols, meticulously painted in henna some time earlier.

“Protection,” Kili tells him without looking, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrates on one _very low_ on Fili’s torso. They have been naked around each other since morning and neither of them remains unaffected.

“And the one you’re taking ages with down there?”

Kili does look up this time, allowing some of the playful hunger to show in his eyes. “Virility.”

“I need a rune for that, do I?”

“You wouldn’t drink the potion.”

Fili scrunches up his nose. “It smelled disgusting. Definitely off-putting, not arousing.”

“It was just herbs! It would have given you the energy you’ll need,” Kili mutters, but they had this conversation once before and he won’t push.

“What’s that one?” his love asks instead, ever curious, careful not to touch the still damp henna, which took ages to get right over the uneven skin above his heart.

“Healing,” Kili tells him quietly.

Fili looks around himself and finds the same symbol repeated over and over again where his older injuries still mark his skin.

“It’s not…” Kili starts, adds several little leaves where he feels like it, can’t find the right words. “I’d never try to take away your scars; it doesn’t work like that. I’m just trying to make sure that everything is healed. None of those are hexes. They’re not symbols designed to _act_. They’re more like… encouragements. Charms. They will aid your own body for as long as they’re visible. Which will be a few weeks.”

“… And that one down there is virility.”

Kili arches an eyebrow. “However shall we cope?”

 

\---

 

Fili squints against the last rays of sunshine, momentarily distracted from where he’s putting the symbol he wanted over Kili’s shoulder.

Kili has done some of his markings himself, but where he can’t comfortably reach, Fili has picked up the task, learning about the runes, which he thought Kili should have.

It’s intimate and throbbing with delicate love: the way Kili shares his knowledge willingly, bares any of his skin for Fili’s henna, or tries not to laugh when Fili strikes a ticklish spot.

There are at least as many kisses as there are symbols on their skin and their hands already begin to wander, and Fili thinks, perhaps for a thousandth time, how grateful he is to be alive.

“Remember, this is just us,” Kili whispers against his ear, letting Fili take his time watching the sky. “What we do, or don’t do, what we take, what we ask for and what we give are ours and ours alone to decide.”

It’s not at all how Fili thought magic might be like; not when there are those dark eyes, full of trust, attention and patient care.

 

\---

 

“So I’m your… what? Sacrifice?”

“You trust me, you know my love, yet you imagine yourself as an offering in this.”

“I thought perhaps it’s less lethal than it sounds. Like witches.”

“Witches _are_ lethal. Or at least they can be. A ‘sacrifice’ suggests having something taken away from you, some sort of a price. I’d never involve you in anything that might strip you of things that are yours, harm you, or make you into something less. I love you, Fili. I’d die to protect you.”

“What am I then?”

Kili steps closer then, fingertips tracing Fili’s flanks, because he can’t, _doesn’t want to_ keep them away. “You are my Focus,” he explains patiently. “You’ll be the one thing that grounds me, guides me, helps me, that’s all. And –“

“Takes you.”

“And takes me,” Kili agrees, as brown eyes find blue, little flickers of mischief finding home in the corners of his mouth. “Remember, you agreed: three times before the night is out.”

“Unless you are uncomfortable, or in pain. You agreed as well. What about the ritual – will it hurt you, if not completed?”

“No. It will just feel… annoyingly unfinished, is all.”

Fili doesn’t look entirely convinced, so Kili steps closer still into the frame of his arms. “We don’t have to do this. We will only have painted each other for no good reason.”

“No, I want to. It’s just not… what I expected. I thought there would be more… rules. A stone circle, maybe an altar, some chanting and so on.”

Kili looks around them helplessly. “The meadow is where we’re happy, which makes it perfect for this. I built us a fire, so we’re not cold and we can stay out here. We brought the furs and water and oil, so it’s comfortable. Oh, and there _is_ a stone circle.”

“There is?”

Kili allows himself a small smile. “I made it with pebbles. Can’t find it unless you know what you’re looking for.”

“And that will work?”

“Stone is stone,” Kili shrugs.

That finally makes Fili smile incredulously and Kili wants to lean in and _lick_ those damnable dimples.

“It will be good, Fili,” he whispers somewhere real close now, almost upon Fili’s skin. “You’re always good to me.”

 

\---

 

The first time Kili takes him inside his body, he’s prepared himself thoroughly and slicked them both with plenty of oil. It still feels hot and tight and sacred and Fili knows no other way, but to worship him, with slow slide of his length, hands tracing muscle, and eyes full of submission and love.

Kili takes his pleasure shamelessly, thighs shifting as he searches for the best angle, pelvis rolling in slow circles, just the way he likes.

Fili lets his fingertips find his nipples and Kili moans, looking down to watch them harden into little pebbles, but when Fili reaches for his cock, he pushes his hand away.

“No,” he pants. “I just want to feel you inside. It will be enough.”

He links their fingers together instead, pins Fili’s hands to the cool grass and leans in, in the same undulating rhythm, for slow, decadent kisses, which invade Fili’s soul as much as he’s invading Kili’s body.

It’s heat, above anything else, but gentle, loving, familiar heat of Kili, and Fili can only give and give and give, distracted by the taste of his lips, his skin, the way Fili’s hands can touch and make him writhe, the way Kili lets him torture him with pleasure until he can’t take it anymore and starts fucking himself on Fili’s length in earnest.

Fili spreads him wide for this and Kili moans his appreciation when it allows him to slip deeper.

And then the angle is _perfect_ and Kili’s eyes are so wide as he starts clenching rhythmically around Fili and he wonders how long he can keep him in that point of brilliant oblivion, before Kili’s body gives in and shakes apart.

But there is determination in those dark eyes made almost black with desire, when Kili bites his lip and gasps, and begs, just a little, but doesn’t stop through it all, until Fili is right there with him and their fingers twine to the point of almost pain, and they both come helplessly, incredibly, together.

 

\---

 

The second time happens a good while later, when they have moved closer to the fire against the coolness of the night and come down enough to get fascinated by each other’s bodies once more.

The second time is about Fili, initiated by his touch, by the way Fili looks at him and asks – and it’s always this throbbing flare of emotion when he does that, one, because he dares to, and two, because it’s _important_ to him that he asks.

“Yes,” Kili replies, imagines himself being a vessel for his pleasure, and how it will feel. He’s luxuriously satisfied after his first orgasm, nicely relaxed and a little bit lazy, but he’s hardly _sated_.

Seems only fair to let Fili do all the hard work.

He allows it when Fili’s gentle hands arrange him in the soft furs on all fours, spread and exposed for Fili to see and he moans at the bright excitement when warm fingers press on the nape of his neck to lower his shoulders down.

“I love you,” Fili whispers between kisses to his ear, the side of his neck, his shoulder and the planes of his back, again and again, his pupils blown wide with naked desire, flickers of fire reflected deep in their depths.

If this isn’t magic, then Kili doesn’t know what is.

He doesn’t even tense when fingers slip inside him first, because this is Fili and he will want to re-assure himself that there will be no pain, that Kili is both ready and willing for him. He relaxes into the teasing touches which add more oil and waits patiently until –

There. Blunt pressure and slow, exquisite stretch, forcing him to open wide and relax into the penetration. It’s easier, like this, to fully appreciate Fili’s girth.

“Kili?” his lover asks as he sinks deeper and deeper, tracing the twisting patterns painted on his back, which makes Kili want to close his eyes, stretch out and arch his spine like a spoiled cat.

“I’m alright. Love this, love it when you take me. Love feeling you inside me, inside my body,” he murmurs, because communication is one of the foundations of their trust.

Fili kisses him then, between his shoulder blades, and stays like that, close, hot, deep, for slow, deliberate moments, and even in that there is a perverse sort of pleasure, because Fili keeps him wanting, yet waiting, and that is such a Fili thing to do.

When he does finally move, Kili is completely used to the sense of fullness inside him and can only gasp and shiver against the exquisite drag, which is now an entirely new sensation, to be savoured and appreciated in its own right.

He knows he will be screaming before Fili is through with him; he knows because they have learned love only from one another, and with it everything their bodies are capable of feeling.

For a time there is nothing but the blinding, radiating pleasure, and a rhythm which keeps building up and then slowing down, never cresting, as Fili fucks him, thoroughly, teasingly, lovingly through pleasure, more pleasure and _pleasepleasemakemecomepleasejustmakemecome_.

Kili’s hands fisted in the furs in front of him and shameless cries that are half-blasphemies, and this time Fili is losing himself first when his hands find Kili’s hips and, uncaring of the markings he’s smudging, yank him hard back so he can find his completion deep within Kili’s body.

Kili’s own orgasm is a bit like an afterthought that blows all other sentiment out of the water, sweet, almost overly-ripe, shattering enough that Fili actually hisses at the feeling.

 

\---

 

Fili watches his Witch sleep.

He’s so unguarded like this, always is, when they’ve made love.

His hands are splayed towards the dying fire, the curve of his spine relaxed to fit better against Fili’s chest, his expression peaceful.

There is something like desire stirring deep in Fili’s gut at the sight, though it’s heavy, lazy still, born so much out of love and the need to protect, that it’s almost an indistinguishable thing. On any other day he would be just as happy to curl up into sleep along the warm body as he’d be to slip inside it.

And yet.

He _did_ promise and although the stars are slipping low on the horizon, the pinks and purples of the morning are some time away yet.

Fili kisses Kili’s shoulder, painted golden from the low flames nearby, splays his hand along his waist, hip, leaves it to rest against Kili’s stomach.

“Hnnnn…?” His love tilts his head, searching for a proper kiss before he is even fully awake and Fili thinks that if Kili was hexed, this would be the daily kiss which might set him free.

If hexes were that simple, that is.

“Shhhh… you’ve slept some.”

That makes Kili tense and blink around them in alarmed confusion. Another kiss then.

“There is time yet,” Fili re-assures him, pleased to feel him relax once more. “How do you feel?”

For a while Kili doesn’t answer, taking stock, shifting a little to get more comfortable in their cocoon of covers. “Tender,” he murmurs finally, truthfully, looking him in the eye. Fili feels guilty about how hoarse he sounds. “But I need you, I just _need_ you. I want you so much, Fili. All I can think of is how it would feel to have you in me again.”

He looks… fragile, though Fili knows that he isn’t. Out of the two of them Kili is probably the stronger one, but his eyes are full of naked emotions and his heart has always been his most vulnerable spot.

Just like Fili’s.

“It’s alright, I’m here. I’ve got you,” he whispers into Kili’s temple, cradles all that open vulnerability in his arms. “It will push you from pleasure into pain, if I try to take you again. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“So be gentle, like I know you can be. Have me slow. Make it good for me. You will know if it becomes too much, I promise.”

He can feel the need undulating between them still, not because of the magic or runes, but because this is Kili and Fili doesn’t know how to _not_ want him, or how to deny him anything.

 

\---

 

The third time is the most personal, most intimate of them all.

Fili paints his own patterns in love over Kili’s skin – kisses, nips and hot suction that soon have the Witch arching up and demanding more. Kili eases into the touch that rekindles his pleasure with satisfied sighs: teeth grazing his nipples, Fili’s hot mouth between his thighs splayed open wide, hands tracing muscle in never-ending, soothing strokes.

Kili lets himself be brought high again, utterly open and willing, gasps when Fili slips an oiled finger inside him and starts rubbing tight little circles around his pleasure spot, when he doesn’t let up, until Kili is a gorgeous, uncoordinated mess.

He only protests when more fingers follow, taking too long to open him up again, when they threaten to make him loose and the hot wetness Fili finds there tries to escape.

“N-no,” Kili insists, hiding his face in the crook of Fili’s arm. “I’m supposed to keep it all inside. Until the sunrise,” he mutters and then flips around like some capricious sprite, pressing his pert ass into Fili’s front.

“Now, Fili. Please.”

The third time is almost exactly like the love they make on rainy autumn mornings, slotted close, skin sliding against skin, dragging each other deeper into the feeling, rather than chasing completion. It’s yet another dialect for their love, this one fired by synapses and faithfully delivered to their hearts as much as their minds.

Fili uses extra oil and then some more until it’s all a wonderful, slippery mess. He slides in slow to a low, drawn out groan, full of guttural desire, which sounds like it’s ripped out from the very depth of Kili’s soul, then presses himself flush, as close as can be along Kili’s back, and holds him, just holds him, to calm his own heart beating to the rhythm of Kili’s pleasure right in his chest.

He wonders how it must feel for Kili, so full, so sensitive, so utterly open, and trusting.

It’s slow, it’s easy and familiar, hips shifting, hands holding, chests expanding in synch, and Kili starts to tighten around him rhythmically almost as soon as Fili has bottomed out, because his body has learned, long ago, that this is going to be _good_.

“Fili- Aaaaahhh, Fee, move, oh gods just _move_ , F-“ Kili pants constantly, overstimulated and high, and Fili kisses him again, close himself, stunned at how quickly his control slips in favour of blinding lust and fierce protectiveness.

He moves inside Kili’s body as gently as he knows how, wraps a slick hand around Kili’s cock, making him keen and struggle inside his hold, as Fili teases just below his head and establishes a perfect counter-rhythm that must feel truly maddening.

“Make me – unnnh, make me… _Fili_ , doesn’t hurt, _please_ …”

And Fili does, full of blind love and devotion, he cants his hips just so, to get him deep and good and feels Kili come all around him and brutally drag him into oblivion.

They come together, clutching at each other and trembling, ready to shatter if either one was to let go.

 

\---

 

Kili comes round in their bed and realises that Fili must have carried him there.

Warmth, comfort, safety.

Fili. His Princeling. Holding him close, wrapped up around him, among the bundle of furs and pillows.

Blue eyes blink open sluggishly, take in his face, soften with a smile hidden under the covers.

“I love you,” Fili whispers with the same gentleness and care in his eyes, as he shows the first fragile shoots in the spring.

The words feel like a balm to the overwhelming emotions swirling inside Kili’s heart. Whatever else makes it beat so loudly between them: gratitude, last sparks of desire, sense of achievement, peace, trust and relief, it’s all wrapped up in Fili’s love, in his understanding and acceptance.

Perhaps for the first time in his life Kili isn’t afraid of anything.

“I love you too, Fee,” He whispers, because such a gift has to be shared to keep its value. “Told you you’d be good to me.”

“And you. You did so well. You were incredible, Kili. So, so good.”

Kili soaks up the praises and tries to hide a pleased smirk, but he thinks it’s futile; Fili always knows anyway.

“How do you feel?” Fili asks.

“About the same as you look.”

“Tired then.”

“Exhausted.”

Fingertips curl around the edge of the furs and pull them down just enough so that Fili can lean in and kiss him, softly, lovingly on the lips.

“Tell me what you need,” he whispers right there, tender, caring. “Food? Drink? I have some water heating up for a bath –“

“You. Just you,” he pushes at the layers to find Fili’s warm skin, his smell, his strength, snuggling up into closeness and any contact he can get. “Don’t go,” he asks.

“No,” Fili agrees, arms closing around his naked back. “I won’t.”

 

\---

 

Fili watches his Witch tucked into a bath.

Something’s changed: it’s subtle, but Fili’s heart is conditioned to pay attention.

 _Before_ they were happy because they were spared and allowed to love.

 _Now_ they are happy because they _chose_ who they are and found their love to be at the core of it.

 

\---

 

“Read to me, Fee.”

“You’ll fall asleep. You should be in bed, resting, as it is.”

“I _am_ resting. Now read to me.”

Fili shakes his head with a smile and leans in for a kiss. “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…”

 

\---

 

“How do you know you love me?”

“I don’t know. What does your heart tell you?”

 

\---

 

THE END.


End file.
